Saturday, December 1, 2012

Sketchpacking Western Australia 2012: Margaret River

The third leg of our WA journey took us down south to Margaret River and the southwestern tip of the Land Down Under. From this part of the journey on, my sketches became less frequent and delayed. Part of it was due to the fact that our room didn't have a good place to sit and sketch as our previous accommodations. As a result, my sketches became less observational and more illustrative. More photo reference was used, but the sketches after the Margaret River leg featured a lot more drawings from my imagination. Most of them were completed only after returning to Singapore.

But we'll save that for later.

We stayed three nights at Margaret River in a backpacker's inn called Surfpoint at Prevelly, some 15 minutes drive from Margaret River's town centre. It is quite near to the mouth of Margaret River where it meets the sea, which is where our first activity took place the morning after we arrived.

Day 5: Bushtucker Tours!

One of the highlights of our Margaret River leg was the Bushtucker Tours. We opted for the package that took us canoeing down the river and let us eat some native bushtucker (food foraged from the bush). Turned out we weren't very good ad canoeing, and the bushtucker lunch was more like a picnic. It wasn't cheap, but it was a great experience.

Day 6: Cape Leeuwin, Caves, and Vineyards
Visiting Margaret River wouldn't be complete without a visit to the vineyards and caves. It is, after all, a wine region. We decided to drive down to the southwestern tip where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean at Cape Leeuwin.

Day 7: Geographe Bay
Our last morning at Margaret River was spent having a sumptuous breakfast, buying some foodstuffs and popping by a historic cottage before rushing to Busselton to catch the jetty tour, which we missed on our way down.